Fires are a natural part of life. We need them for warmth, to cook food, to keep other animals and some humans at bay (usually those with a conquering attitude and a willingness to steal whatever they want, or whatever other supposedly good reason they may have). and even to stop us running around with exhaustion trying to chase down the faster moving, tricky and tasty critters that human carnivores seem determined to consume (and yes, those extra trees and bushes do get in the way of a good spear flying through the air).
This is especially true in Australia. From the days when the first Aborigines migrated to this continent from south-east Asia in search of a better place, they brought with them the technology of fire and used it in a dramatic way. It was not just for warmth or scare off a few unwanted animals at night. The early settlers discovered a new advantage in using fire to catch and cook their food. A kind of giant kitchen and oven in the outdoors for the early humans to benefit. Unfortunately, the regular use of fire over thousands of years has vastly transformed the Australian landscape from a once wet and relatively lush continent of 60,000 to 100,000 years ago (and even as recent as 10,000 years ago) to one of the driest continents in the world today. Some people will argue that this is all to do with climate change (or the period during which there is a reversal of the magnetic poles). Rainfall can decrease. Fewer trees to provide ground cover and reduce evaporation of surface water, resulting in the large inland sea of the Australian mainland no longer getting replenished or certainly not as often. Then the occasional lightning strike occurs and before you know it, a major bushfire can sweep across vast swathes of the land. Either way, and whatever the truth, the use of fire across the continent has affected the type of trees and bushes that could survive on an increasingly dry continent.
Eventually, all this would affect the largest animals that existed during the last Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago. As first, the cumbersome, large megafauna and other interesting and exotic animals that once existed in Australia during the wetter early period were slow to escape the increased number of fires brought on by the new inhabitants and by nature, and so making it harder to avoid humans. They had survived numerous ice ages and interglacial periods, but not in the presence of the new bipedal invaders. The human population grew slowly to affect a certain number of animals all because of one thing: fire (as well as the human desire to consume animals for food). When large animals are slow to move, spears and fire would trap them and have them cooked. Combined with less nutritious plants and fruits, fewer plants, and less water, soon the type of animals that could survive soon had to change. Those that were considered too large and cumbersome and needed extra plant food for extra energy and to build up enough protein to have adequate size to withstand the larger predators were wiped out in favour of smaller "faster moving or able to hide underground, and able to reproduce more quickly". Today the most adaptable animals to these new conditions include the kangaroos, echidnas, and the surprisingly resilient and tough wombat for its size and speed (hiding underground turned out to be a very useful adaptation during a fire).
On the positive side, the Australian Aborigines have uncovered patterns in the environment. These patterns include the discovery of the benefits of fire in reducing the natural and dry fuel loads from plants shedding their leaves, branches and bark (e.g., the Eucalyptus tree), and from grasslands. Bushfires are less intense, and more animals have a better chance of surviving the current and potentially future bushfires. And with more fire-resistant plants, the methods of growing new plants sees that certain seeds from plants have adapted to fire as a necessary means of survival. The true indigebous people of Australia are now experts in managing fire in a natural environment.
As we can see, in the 21st century, and especially in Australia, fire has become an absolute necessity. Perhaps not so much to capture food, but to control the excessive build-up of dry vegetation that has the potential to create larger and more dangerous hot fires. It is not just to protect human life and property. In the years to come, it will be necessary to reduce the fuel loads from grasslands, somehow on a vast scale, to present these hot fires from destroying the next generation of seeds lying dormant underground that could see a transformation of the Australian landscape into a permanent desert.
Lighting up cool fires is the best way to keep the dry growth and fuel loads on the ground to manageable and safe levels. Many experts now see this as an essential activity in modern Australia and it must continue until new large-scale solutions are implemented to pump freshwater back into the central parts of Australia where the inland sea once existed for there to be any hope of growing more trees on the land (maybe by starting along rivers and moving over land). Then the rainfall recycling system will restart and be sustained for longer. Perhaps merely a pipedream? Who knows. Until then, the Australian people are where they are today, partly because of our poor decision to use fire to capture our food only for nature to accelerate the process of drying up the continent once the trees were reduced in numbers and the ground exposed to a hotter and drier environment, but also our desire to treat the land like it is part of mother England with its regular rainfall and great gardens and watch the Australian outback grow wild and lushes again even while the rainfall is intermittent and more like a few spits of water. We are forever indebted to those very early settlers for making this country for what it is today, and to those alive today for continuing to clear the land for growing agriculture and new places for people to live. Cool fires at the right time of year appear to be our last remaining hope of maintaining our current way of life, if we are to save our towns and cities from being burned to a crisp, and at the same time keep our existing wildlife constantly on their toes (we can see why kangaroos are constantly hopping mad to avoid getting their toes cooked).
Either that or there needs to be a new social world order and a transformation of the current economic system into something that is far more sustainable and better for the environment in the long term. If not, then only those who rely on the current economy for high profits will always disagree. As the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) have said on 13 January 2020, the forestry industry could help to reduce the threat of bushfires by widening the range of forests that can be "thinned out" (i.e., through logging) and by conducting more hazard reduction burning in the winter time for those areas that have been cleared. But as scientists have warned, thinning down the forests could have the opposite effect by increasing bushfires. Apart from drying out more of the ground as the radiation from the Sun reaches the ground and evaporate any remaining water, fewer trees mean less chance of reducing the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Then we have global warming, and that is not a good outcome. Somehow, we need to find ways to grow more trees in order to reverse climate change, not fewer trees. The proposal is seen as a cynical attempt by the forestry industry to increase (or sustain its own) profits rather than address the growing problem of climate change and the increasing number of more intense bushfires.
As for the R-wing government of the day and those commentators with a financially vested interest in maintaining the current economy, they will be constantly reinforcing their own beliefs on R-wing news sites (e.g., Sky News) that we are still in an ice age and need this warming period to continue and get warmer over time as the only way to improve the current environmental problems.
The current economy, with its rich and powerful leaders and followers, is a cult or sorts, not unlike what we see in the Church of Scientology. There are efforts to brainwash western citizens through their own preferred news channels and programmes, and yet no one wants to listen to the evidence unless it supports their own belief system and desire to maintain profits. There is no reasoning with such people, unless of course they can see that the economy is being seriously affected. Only when the profits of these people take a dramatic nosedive will any truly useful long-term change take place.
Until the time comes when common sense will prevail and we can transform society to where it needs to be, fire must be seen as a positive effect on the natural environment if managed properly, and one that has to be human-induced as a matter of survival for animals and humans. We have no choice. We are primarily responsible for the continent we have created and can see today. We had a choice after the last Ice Age to maintain or increase a thick canopy of trees and retain moisture on the ground (and for the large inland sea of the Australian mainland to stay in place longer to help maintain high levels of rainfall). Now we have squandered that opportunity.
As Australia remains one of the driest and most fire prone places on earth, this free information section is a useful addition to this site. We provide you with the essentials for managing and controlling fires, as well as ways to prevent fires from taking hold or reaching regions of human habitation. We have included basic information about the factors that control a fire and what you can do to protect the environment, yourself and others from the threat of fire.
If you would like to see more information included in this section (either to improve on this topic or to suggest new areas worthy of discussion), feel free to send us a message.
Contents
- ABOUT FIRE
What is fire and how to control it? - UNDERSTANDING YOUR ENVIRONMENT
How does your environment affect fires? - PROTECTING YOUR ENVIRONMENT
A check list for protecting the outside of your house - PROTECTING YOUR HOME
A check list for protecting the inside of your house - PROTECTING PEOPLE
A check list for protecting yourself and others - CONCLUSION
Dealing with people and the environment for effective fire management - BIBLIOGRAPHY